Primary Agriculture Cooperative Credit Societies Expansion

Primary Agriculture Cooperative Credit Societies Expansion

The Government on 15.2.2023, approved the Plan for strengthening cooperative movement in the country and deepening its reach up to the grassroots. The Plan entails establishment of 2 lakh new multipurpose PACS (M-PACS), Dairy, Fishery Cooperative Societies covering all the Panchayats/ villages in the country over a period of five years, through convergence of various existing GOI schemes, including Dairy Infrastructure Development Fund (DIDF), National Programme for Dairy Development (NPDD), PM Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY), etc, with the support of National Bank for Agricultural and Rural Development (NABARD), National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), National Fisheries Development Board (NFDB) and State Governments.

In order to diversify the economic activities of PACS to make them multipurpose economic entities, Model Byelaws have been prepared by the Ministry, enabling PACS to undertake more than 25 business activities, including dairy, fishery, setting up godowns, procurement of foodgrains, fertilizers, seeds, LPG/CNG/Petrol/Diesel distributorship, short- term & long-term credit, custom hiring centers, Fair Price Shops (FPS), community irrigation, Common Service Centre, etc.

In addition to the above, the Government of India has taken several other important initiatives as well, including the following:

of 59,920 PACS have been onboarded on ERP Software and hardware has been procured by 30 States/UTs.

· World’s Largest Decentralized Grain Storage Plan in Cooperative sector: Government has approved a plan to create warehouses, custom hiring centers, primary processing units and other agri-infrastructure for grain storage at PACS level, through convergence of various existing schemes of Government of India (GOI), including Agricultural Infrastructure Fund (AIF), Agricultural Marketing Infrastructure (AMI), Sub-Mission on Agricultural Mechanization (SMAM), Pradhan Mantri Formalisation of Micro Food Processing Enterprises (PMFME), etc. Under the pilot project of the plan, construction of godowns in 11 PACS of 11 States has been completed.

· PACS made eligible for Retail Petrol/ Diesel outlets: Government has allowed PACS to be included in the Combined Category 2 (CC2) for allotment of retail petrol/ diesel outlets.

The initiatives are being implemented by utilizing the approved outlays of the existing schemes of Government of India which are being converged at PACS level. Further, for efficient delivery of the services being provided by PACS across the country including in the Palghar district of the State of Maharashtra, specific trainings are also being provided to them by the agencies concerned.

The Centrally Sponsored Project for Computerization of PACS entails bringing all the functional PACS onto an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) based common national software, linking them with NABARD through State Cooperative Banks (StCBs) and District Central Cooperative Banks (DCCBs), which aims to bring transparency and effectiveness in the working of PACS so that the operation of PACS can be professionalized.

The following schemes are being implemented by National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) to encourage and strengthen young entrepreneurs/women self-help groups/FPOs in the cooperative sector:

This was stated by the Minister of Cooperation, Shri Amit Shah in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha.